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that help me create a patchwork of colour is all part of the fun of ‘growing your own’. By choosing crops that provide a full eating sensation – colour, texture, sweetness, flavour – you can take your veg-growing to new heights, and enjoy home-grown produce

I’m a big fan of raspberries, which are the most reliable of all the soft fruit crops that I grow. My soil is heavy and alkaline, and I’ve found that autumn-fruiting raspberries last much longer in it than summer-fruiting varieties. So now I stick

for eating in salads, some for using in sauces and some for roasting. My aubergines will be so plentiful, I won’t need to buy any again (no matter how many aubergine parmigianas I make). I’ll grow enough garlic to hang in plaits around my kitchen and my

others during a trial.I'm aiming to grow strong garlic plants that develop quickly and mature early. I'll plant the bulbs at a slightly wider spacing than before, to improve air circulation and reduce humidity around the plants. And I'll avoid high

simply sold as 'sweetcorn', 'tomato' or 'white potato' when you haven't a clue what the variety actually is? We can be far more discerning, as both consumers and gardeners, choosing and growing named varieties of crops that have the flavour and eating

instead of flowers.But the rebel in me only goes so far. I do like a straight line, so within the triangles I still grow the veg in rows. It's practical, and makes things easy to plant and harvest. But most of all it just looks so satisfyingly good.I use

rightly - and while not unpleasant, they were certainly an acquired taste.Dandelions grow bigger, with longer leaves, in wild areas than they do in lawns, where mowing keeps them flat and close to soil level. Apparently, the French often eat them as a

’d grow bigger, and they just rotted). But my three compost heaps, dotted around the plot, were the envy of the allotment.So we all have to start somewhere and we will always make mistakes. And the best thing about making mistakes is learning from them

knows, perhaps salad crops growing in lawns will be next year's big trend at the Chelsea Flower Show. Don't forget you heard it here first.There is a small allotment outside the offices of Gardeners’ World magazine, where there is space for a few of us

miserable, skinny crop. Is it just me that’s been unlucky this year? Eager to find out, I recently took to driving very slowly past the local allotments, to get a glimpse of the leeks there!Without wishing to tempt fate, at least my crop hasn’t been affected